


Kings and Queens (of promise)

by zanzibar



Series: (Paid for with) Pride and Fate [3]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2014 Winter Olympics, Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5933935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanzibar/pseuds/zanzibar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t need your ink to bring me goals,” he smiles smugly, “I’m the Kessel that can get goals all on my own.”</p><p>“Go away from me,” she tosses the Sharpie on the table and points toward the door, “Blake is my new favorite brother.”</p><p>In which Phil Kessel goes to Russia and gets to hang out with his sister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kings and Queens (of promise)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back Best Kessel!
> 
> Title janked from 30 Seconds to Mars. Because there's a theme here.

The problem with leaving home when you're 14 is that someday. Years from now. Practically a lifetime away. You'll stand in a foreign country and people will ask you questions about your baby sister. And you'll have to wonder for a minute who on earth they're talking about. 

Because when you left home she was Mandy. All pigtails and rough and tumble tomboy and the fastest skater you've ever seen in your life. She’s another chip off the probably-too-competitive Kessel block. The sister who calls you her favorite hockey player and who has, in the heat of competition, whipped a ping pong paddle at your head

But now she's Amanda. She's a national champion, a Patty Kazmaier winner. She’s long blonde hair and a smile that lights up a room. She’s a thousand times more beautiful than she has any right to be and still one of the best hockey players you’ve ever seen in your life. And the first time someone sticks a recorder in your face and asks about Amanda it almost feels like there is no reconciling those two things. There's Mandy. And there's Amanda. And somehow it seems like a metaphor for everything. That's all you can think about. The girl with the pigtails who's practically a grown up without you ever knowing how that could have happened.

Phil reflects on this as he reads an article in Women’s Health about the benefits of adding Chia Seeds to smoothies. Phil cannot get past the idea that Chia Seeds look a lot like ants, crawling all over your food. Mandy’s sitting cross-legged in the desk chair, singing along with Katy Perry, wearing a pair of standard issue Team USA gray sweatpants that he’s pretty sure are his, a white tank top and no makeup. She’s beautiful and he’s filled with such an urge to protect her that he has to physically bite his tongue to swallow the words that threaten to spill out of his mouth.

He flips the page to an article about bikinis, groans and flips two more pages to an article about abs. 

He’s about to bang his head against the mattress and wish for a different magazine, any different magazine when Mandy reaches across the space between her chair and the bed to hand him a black Sharpie. He pushes up on his elbows and uncaps it without comment, inhaling the sharp smell of permanent marker. His fingers are thick and callused against her delicate wrists holding her still as he carefully fills in the shadow of the previous arrow on the inside of her left wrist, the thick black ink dark and strong against pale skin. She frowns in concentration as the faded remnants become solid again.

“You’re so weird,” he tosses the magazine on the floor and buries his forehead in the thick fluffy blanket she brought from home, the blanket smells like a combination of Mandy and the house in Madison, like cedar and winter and mandarin oranges, and stretched out on his stomach across her Sochi-miniature twin bed he’s unexpectedly homesick for a place he hasn’t lived in almost half his life. He’s been lounging for the past hour, just hanging out as she meticulously repainted her toenails red, white and blue, filed her fingernails and now he doesn't even have to watch to know what’s next, the chair creaks and he knows she is reaching across the desk to snag her makeup bag, as familiar with her pre-game rituals as he is with his own, even with his eyes closed. He chuckles at her superstition as she blows on the ink to be sure it doesn’t smear.

“Shut up,” she grins, dropping the makeup bag and reaching out, lightening-fast to grab his wrist.

He lifts his head to watch curiously as she uncaps the opposite side of the Sharpie to reveal a finer point. Squeezing his hand between her knees she draws an arrow on his wrist. The fine point of the pen sharp and smooth as it drags across his skin, the line along the top of his wrist thinner, less obvious than hers, but still there.

“It’s a reminder,” she says quietly, “to keep moving forward,”

“It’s a superstition,” Phil argues, “I don’t do that shit.”

“It’s ink on your wrist,” she pokes him in the bicep with the capped Sharpie, “maybe it will bring you goals.”

“I don’t need your ink to bring me goals,” he smiles smugly, “I’m the Kessel that can get goals all on my own.”

“Go away from me,” she tosses the Sharpie on the table and points toward the door, “Blake is my new favorite brother.”

It’s time for him to go anyway, she's going to open the makeup bag and break out the eyeliner in a minute and it freaks him out to watch her put a pencil in her eyeball. If he goes upstairs now he has just about enough time to take a quick nap, shower and shove JVR out the door to get to her game.

He stands next to her chair as he leaves, draining a water bottle and pressing a kiss into the messy bun piled on the top of her head. She presses her nose against his hip and sags against his familiar solid bulk just for minute.

“Forward huh,” he mutters as he walks out the door.

“Forward,” she whispers under her breath.

* * *

He spies the arrow on his wrist when he’s warming up against Slovenia - a hint of sharpie in the gap of his gloves, the reminder to go forward not actually unwelcome. Not that he’d ever admit that.

After his third goal her laughing voice rings in his head.

“Forward.”

* * *

She’s magic on the ice. But he doesn’t expect anything less from her. After all he’s been watching since before she could walk.

His heart breaks for her when Poulin’s shot hits the back of the net, when the Canadian flag is raised to the rafters, when he sees her later, answering questions at the podium, standing strong and tall.  


* * *

  
He doesn’t cry when they lose to Finland. He hasn’t really cried about hockey in years, has used defeat and disappointment and media slander as fuel for his speed, as extra motivation to lean into his shot.

Kaner cries quietly in the corner, and Phil is almost jealous that he has an outlet, that he can translate his disappointment into something tangible, even if it is only tears.

He scrubs the loss off in the showers, tries to press his mind into focusing on Maple Leaf hockey. Imagines Bozie and Stella, waiting for him at home, loving him, even empty-handed. He reaches for the soap and sees the fading arrow on his wrist, twists his hand in the yellow light of the showers. 

Her voice is a whisper, “forward.”

* * *

The plane home is quiet in a way that he recognizes from losses, it’s less any actual emotion and more an absence of rowdiness, of the generally loose horseplay that accompanies victory. It’s the first time in almost 2 weeks that he isn’t wearing a single piece of clothing branded with team USA anything and he can’t decide if he feels free or like he’s drifting without a tether.

Mandy drops into the seat next to him without asking, without even making eye contact. She’s sullenly quiet, kicking her bag under the seat and shoving her stocking hat into the seat pocket in front of her. She presses her head sharply back against the headrest and tucks both hands deep into the pocket of her hoodie.

The plane fills around them.

“Are you going to sulk all the way home?” Phil only asks after they’ve taken off and she hasn’t said a word. Mandy knows it’s immature and that she should be better, but her only response is to roll her eyes and squeeze them shut.

20 minutes later Phil drives one of his pointy elbows into her ribs.

“We have like 15 hours on this plane,” Mandy cracks one eye open and Phil shrugs. “I’m just saying that you might be stubborn, but I’ve been alive longer than you. And I’m more stubborn.”

She still waits another 45 minutes before she breaks the silence. She waits until they’ve dimmed the lights and there’s nothing more than a low murmur of voices across the whole plane.

“I should have been better,” it’s her deepest darkest secret, held close like a festering sore these last few days until she can almost imagine the black tar of her disappointment oozing into her everyday interactions.

Phil nods and the ice that’s surrounded her heart for days starts to crack. Because she knows suddenly and certainly that he isn’t going to placate her. He isn’t going to smile tell her that she did her best and she has nothing to be ashamed of. He’s often a shadow in her life, a voice on the other end of the phone, text bubbles popping up on her phone. But he’s loyal and honest and the best brother she can imagine having. 

“We both could have been better,” he admits, fiddling with the cord on his headphones. “We’ll be better next time.”

“What if there isn’t a next time,” she whispers it, her biggest fear finally said aloud, left hanging between them somewhere over Ukraine.

He nods but doesn’t answer right away.

“You're my favorite hockey player.” He says it flatly, like he’s expressing an opinion about pulp in Orange Juice, like it’s something he doesn’t have to think about. He just knows exactly how he feels on this subject. Mandy blushes, ducking to hide behind the curtain of her hair. 

“Stop.”

“You told that guy on TV that whatever team I’m on is your favorite,” he jabs her with an elbow. “You said, out loud, the words Phil’s biggest fan. But I'm serious. You've been my favorite hockey player since I was 14 years old. And god knows I hated the lockout and wanted nothing more than to be out there playing. But the lockout gave me a chance to watch you for once and I'll never not be thankful for all the games I got to see you play.”

Phil draws a deep breath and continues.

“And yes. We had a shitty showing and I should have been better and I'm pissed that I have to go home empty-handed. But these 2 weeks. Hanging out with you. Watching you kick ass and take names and prove that women's hockey isn't something to be taken lightly. Mandy I'm so fucking thankful that I got to do all of this with you. And I am so proud to be your brother.”

“God.” She sniffed. “If you said half of that to the media a quarter of the time you'd seriously lose your reputation.” 

“Those fuckers don’t deserve that shit,” he shrugged a shoulder and shifted to wrap an arm around her squeezing her shoulder when she wiped the tears from under her eyes and then dried them on his jeans. 

“Love you, big brother.” She tucked her head under his chin and so she could lean against him more fully. 

“Love you, Mandy-pants.“

The plane is quiet, eerie with the reflections of computer screens dancing across the overhead compartments and the moonlight sliding across the clouds below. 

Phil leans his head back against the headrest, exhaustion overtaking his desire to see the end of the movie they’ve been half-heartedly watching. Mandy rests her head against his shoulder and he presses his lips against the top of her head, the arrows on their wrists match up for just a minute.

“Forward,” he mumbles, closing his eyes.

Mandy curls her legs up on the seat, rests her weight more fully against him and whispers “Forward.”


End file.
